"Kroll has described his paintings as fiction or poetry; they are neither of a specific point in time nor slavish records of natural history. His work deals with the fragility of nature, and the tension of our own imaginations—our dream of what nature is—versus the reality of the way we live in the twenty-first century. 'I want to reclaim the wilderness,' Kroll has said, but he recognizes the unlikelihood that most of us will experience nature in anything more than a superficial sense. He claims, 'I paint refuges, places to go for solace.' For Kroll, natural treasures—a nest, a clutch of eggs, birds, butterflies, fruit, flowers—signify peace and a cautious optimism, and in so doing, hope."